Today, there are many payment card reader terminals, most of which have an electronic circuit that manages the operating of the device, which is made up of a printed circuit board on which a number of electronic components are soldered, including microcontrollers.
Conventional payment devices with bankcard readers include terminals that are generally portable, wired or wireless, which operate alone or with a base.
The functions that are allocated to the base and the terminal may vary from one embodiment to the next. The base is generally connected to a payment centre via the public switched telephone network and transmits messages to bank servers in response to the messages received from the terminal. The base also acts as the recharging station for charging the electricity accumulator in the terminal. Besides, the base may also be used to print transaction tickets.
The portable terminal therefore includes at least one payment card reader, a data input keypad, a display screen, power supply, particularly in the form of a rechargeable accumulator and an electronic control circuit in the form of a printed circuit board that includes a main microcontroller comprising a micro-processor and different input and output interfaces. The main microcontroller is particularly responsible for the operating of the terminal and also that of the various peripheral devices.
Systems are also known where such portable devices are fitted with one or more miniature smart card readers that meet the requirements of standard GSM 11.11, which miniature smart cards are also commonly called SAM (Secure Access Module) cards. These SAM cards have an input/output pad that meets the requirements of standard ISO (Cnet) applicable to smart cards. Because such SAM cards are very small, they can be easily installed in portable electronic devices, particularly card reader payment terminals.
The use of such SAM cards in payment terminals is currently dedicated to the execution of specific tasks such as identification operations, password verification or managing electronic purse financial applications that use confidential data and proprietary algorithms that the managing organisations do not wish to publish and are therefore incorporated directly into the electronic circuit of the terminal.
These SAM cards used by portable terminals such as payment terminals or mobile phones therefore contain confidential information and are issued by operators (banks etc.) to fully identified users (merchants etc.), who are then required to insert them in the terminals to execute specific applications with the devices, such as debiting and crediting electronic purse cards.
Cards and terminals are therefore produced and developed totally separately. Terminals fitted with SAM card readers consider the SAM cards as peripheral devices and the microcontroller of the terminal is configured to converse with the cards in accordance with predetermined protocols and complete predefined tasks that are generally limited to transferring data or commands between the smart cards and the payment cards.